Notes: I just needed some Rumbelle fluff this morning. Super short.
Dearie
She had heard him say that names had meaning, so it was not a great leap to think that he might acknowledge a significance to nicknames as well. It hadn't taken her long to form up a general understanding of how he viewed those he was communicating with just by listening to what he called them. They'd likely never see it, but she did.
Nearly everyone was dearie to Rumplestiltskin, though sometimes dear. It was a name Belle had always thought of as a kind gesture, but when it fell from his lips and attached itself to most everyone without discrimination it did tend to lose that prior meaning. Kings were dearie, queens were dearie, lords and ladies and mill workers and bread makers. High born or low born, if a person approached him, they were dearie. If they wanted to strike a deal, they were dearie. She had been dearie time and time again after she agreed to go with him. It had gotten to the point that she was almost certain he'd forgotten her name, but then again, he beleived names had power. She supposed delegating everyone to the same name, no matter who they were, was a kind of power within itself. After all, who was going to tell the Dark One no?
The first time he called her by name it was rather startling. It was sharp, though not in the way his voice usually sing-songed the words he spoke. There had been nothing light about it, nothing familiar in any sort of kind way. He barked it out, voice rough and clipped as he'd raced into the room after discovering she'd let the theif go. She'd been so upset with him over the whole ordeal that she hadn't even thought about it until days later, sitting in her library that he'd given to her. Belle couldn't say why, but the fact that she remained dearie like everyone else and that the only time he'd deemed it important enough to call her given name was a fit of anger caused her chest to ache.
Looking back, though, she wasn't sure exactly when it had begun to shift. Dearie became his irritable nickname only used when she walked in on something she wasn't supposed to be a part of or pressed a subject he'd prefer left well enough alone, but she slowly became dear and then it shifted into an almost affectionate m'dear. At some point, the latter had even begun to be accompanied by what she was sure was a more genuine smile than he gave most. It pulled the edges of his thin lips out and tilted them up ever so slightly, the expression breaking through layers of his many defenses.
It hadn't been until Storybrooke that he'd called her sweetheart though. Not until after he'd lost her and gained her back did she see a few more layers begin to peel away. He'd been hurt so deeply and built the walls so thick and so high that it was a wonder that she'd ever caught a glimpse of him in the first place. She had though, and she'd known it was worth it.
It was the little things, Belle decided, that showed her how much he'd changed. It was the way he tried to be better even when he really didn't want to care and the way he had become more willing to admit his own wrongs. It was in the way his voice grew softer when he spoke to her. Her name was special to him, just as she was. Everyone else could be dearie, but only Belle was his sweetheart.
END.